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Burke says he's only given Claytons approval to new mines

TONY EASTLEY: Conservationists in New South Wales are unhappy and the independent MP Rob Oakeshott says he's "gutted" by the Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke's decision to give approval to two coal mine projects near Narrabri and a separate coal seam gas development near Gloucester.

Mr Burke's defended his decision, saying there are strict conditions attached to each of the developments at Whitehaven's Maules Creek open-cut mine project, the nearby Boggabri coal mine expansion and the planned CSG project near Gloucester.

Mr Burke's spoken with chief political correspondent Sabra Lane.

TONY BURKE: I don't think there's ever been a set of three approvals that I've given with so little knowledge as to whether or not the projects will end up going ahead.

On this occasion, all three of them, there were significant outstanding issues and in the ordinary course, I would have worked through those before making a decision.

What I've done in this case is, for the areas that are not yet resolved, instead of giving a normal approval and say these are the conditions, I've said these further issues need to be worked through to my satisfaction before we know whether the project can actually go ahead.

So it's quite... even though it's just being reported as approvals, it's actually quite a different set of conditions to what would normally occur.

SABRA LANE: How stringent are these conditions?

TONY BURKE: As I say, some of them are on issues that are not resolved. So with Gloucester, the hydrological modelling still has to be done. And if the impact on ground water comes back as unacceptable then the project won't be able to go ahead.

Quite simply, the New South Wales Government had started to strategically leak parts of where we were up to with bits of it being reported, not all of it being reported, and effectively had a situation where market-sensitive information was starting to drip feed into the market.

Pretty irresponsible pathway to choose, and something that no other state government's ever done before.

So I took the view that I should make the decisions on all the conditions that we were certain of and do all of that publicly. And then for the issues that were still yet to be resolved, put rules around them where unless they're resolved to my satisfaction, the project can't go ahead, but to cut New South Wales out of the remainder of the process.

SABRA LANE: Do you think each of those three projects will go ahead on the balance of probabilities?

TONY BURKE: I don't know and I view that as a decision that's not for me, as to whether the projects actually occur.

SABRA LANE: Locals up near the Whitehaven Maules Creek mine are threatening and considering a legal challenge over your decision to approve that project. A local farmer says that you've just made a politically expedient decision.

TONY BURKE: I would have thought it's the exact opposite of that. You see the reaction, it's hardly something that's been driven by the politics.

The next stage of all of this, though, is to work out whether the companies can meet the further requirements that are still there. And I don't know whether the companies are going to be able to meet to my satisfaction on the principles of minimising the footprint of any one point in time.

SABRA LANE: You've cut the New South Wales Government from any further role in approvals process. Why?

TONY BURKE: I can't have a situation where market-sensitive information gets strategically leaked for political purposes. You need to have a situation where anyone who you're bringing into the advanced detail before things are finalised is able to act in a responsible way.

So even with all my fights with the Newman Government, and there's been more than one or two of them, there's been no stage where they've done anything as irresponsible as that. And that level of game-playing, everybody loses when you behave in that way.

So, the best thing for me to do is, rather than just have arguments through the media, is to quite deliberately just cut them out of any further consultation on these projects.

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Around 500 Indigenous people fought in the First World War, and as many as 5,000 in the second. But many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander diggers who made it home received little or no recognition for their contribution. On Anzac Day, 2007, the first parade to commemorate their efforts and bravery was held in Sydney. Listen to our report from that day by Lindy Kerin.